SUMMARY: Mount Holly’s 2007 Master Plan is about seven years out of date. A “Re-examination Report” [The Report] of the old Master Plan, which should have been done in 2017, was completed in 2024. With more than half of 2025 passed, the “suggestions” in the Re-examination Report have not yet resulted in a new Master Plan. Nevertheless, Township Council drafted a new land use ordinance to create a “Health and Life Sciences District” recommended by The Report. This ordinance, as per state law, must be judged “consistent” with a Master Plan. But the 2007 Master Plan [which is still the official plan] does not speak to the proposed zone. Heedless of this inconsistency, the Planning Board compared the new land use ordinance to the “Re-examination Report” as if it were the Master Plan, and found it “substantially consistent”. This caused the Mount Holly Reporter to ask The Planning Board Members and its attorney if the The Report is the Master Plan. They refused to answer. To get at this answer, The Reporter used the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) to request the “current version of the Master Plan”. Township Clerk Sherry Marnell transmitted the “Re-examination Report” as a response. Since the Deputy Mayor had already claimed The Report was NOT the Master Plan, the Mount Holly Reporter lodged a complaint with the State Government Records Council [GRC]. The complaint was settled in late July 2025 when the Mount Holly Solicitor admitted that the Master Plan is still under evaluation, and that additional work was needed to complete it.
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
Since 2024, The Mount Holly Reporter has followed the halting progress of Mount Holly’s Master Plan update. Our last official Master Plan is dated 2007. State law [N.J.S.A. 40:55D-89] requires that the Master Plan be re-evaluated every 10 years. That evaluation was 7 years late when township vendor ERI issued its detailed “Master Plan Re-examination Report” in August 2024 [The Report].
CONTROVERSY ABOUT HISTORIC AS MASTER PLAN REVISIONS BEGIN
The Report, which was “adopted” by the Mount Holly Planning Board in September 2024, contained a number of controversial suggestions. A significant number of residents first objected to the suggestion that Mount Holly should “delete” Historic Preservation from the Master plan. After a number of contentious Council Meetings in 2024, Town Council and its outside professionals began to consider whether and what to adopt from recommendations in The Report.
See
In the first months of 2025, newly seated Deputy Mayor Rich DiFolco stated that “We still need to have a conversation about what, if any, of those [recommendations] we want to do". DiFolco stated that The Report was just a series of recommendations and the Township was not obliged to adopt any specific part of The Report into its Master Plan. The Reporter asked the Solicitor at that time how long this process might take and was assured that the timeframe was a matter of weeks, not months.
So, as best could be discerned by close inquiry of the township’s progress, the “current” Master Plan was still the document published in 2007, which contained none of the controversial provisions of The Report.
HEALTH ZONE CONTROVERSY SLOWS MASTER PLAN REVISIONS
Another part of The Report which turned out to be wildly unpopular was the new land use zone called the “Health and Life Science District”. In March 2025, Council drafted ordinance 2025-2 to implement the Health and Life Science zone. The main complaint from residents was that their properties were included in this zone by referencing residential tax block and lots. At the March 2025 Council Meeting, residents were provided with a map that depicted their properties in an “Overlay” area. Township planning professionals assured residents that they should not worry, but many thought the “overlay” would distort property values. And so Council was forced to table ordinance 2025-2 and create a new version without the residential “Overlay”.
If you would like to know more about 2025-2 and see the “Overlay”, go to https://www.themounthollyreporter.org/p/take-the-target-off-my-home
In April, a revised ordinance 2025-6 was drafted which deleted reference to residential properties and passed its “first reading. It was sent it back to the Planning Board for a mandatory “Master Plan Consistency Review”. After the Planning Board declared it consistent, it came back to the Council for its “second reading” where it could become law. But: to which Master Plan was it compared?
COMPARING AN ORDINANCE TO A MASTER PLAN THAT DOES NOT EXIST
The Mount Holly Reporter observed that the Township had sent its new Health Zone ordinance 2025-6 to the Planning Board for a consistency review which compared the ordinance to The Report. But both the Deputy Mayor and Solicitor had already stated that The Report was not the Master Plan. And the actual current Master Plan [from 2007] had nothing in it about a Health Zone. So how could the new Health Zone ordinance 2025-6 possibly be consistent with the actual Master Plan?
BRING IN THE PROFESSIONALS AGAIN
During May of this year, the Township brought in the ERI planner Brett Harris to explain how the Master Plan is used in municipal government.
“The Planning Board found that the ordinance was consistent with the 2024 Master Plan Re-examination Report”. “They needed to evaluate ‘substantial consistency’ which, through case law…” says “an ordinance must not substantially or materially undermine basic provisions of the Master Plan”. “In my opinion, even though Appendix B [of The Report] references specific [residential tax parcel] Blocks, it is still substantially consistent with the overall planning document”… “which recommends to create a new Health Life Sciences district”.
Brett Harris, ERI
Notice that Mr. Harris admits that the Planning Board was making their evaluation using The Report, which the Deputy Mayor had said is NOT the Master Plan.
WHAT PLAN? ENTER THE GRC
The Reporter questioned the Planning Board members and their attorney about what Master Plan they were using in their “consistency review”. No board member was able to respond and the attorney refused to respond. The Reporter had already established via multiple inquires with Council that The Report was not the Master Plan. So, what document does Mount Holly use as its current Master Plan?
The state of New Jersey enacted the Open Public Records Act [OPRA] to establish what documents are public, how long they should be maintained, and rules for how government should release them to the public. The Mount Holly Reporter made an OPRA request to Mount Holly Township Clerk Sherry Marnell for the “current Master Plan”. Ms. Marnell sent The Report as her response to the OPRA request. The Reporter informed Marnell that that request was not complete, because what she sent was not the Master Plan.
The Reporter wrote:
“The easiest path to resolving this is for Ms. Garty [Planning Board lawyer] to confirm Mt Holly is using the 2024 document you sent [The Report] or to name which other document we use” [as the Master Plan].
Marnell responded:
“As you are aware, OPRA is for requesting specific identifiable government records. OPRA is not for requesting information. You requested the current Masterplan, I supplied that to you. Your request is complete.”
And so, The Reporter lodged Complaint 2025-93 with the State of New Jersey Government Records Council [GRC] and said we were willing to have the matter resolved by a mediator. The township engaged its solicitor to represent Ms. Marnell.
During July, The Reporter wrote to the Solicitor indicating that a settlement could be reached if the Twp would respond to 4 questions:
1. Deputy Mayor DiFolco was correct when he stated that there is not yet a new Masterplan for Mount Holly, and that the "2024 Re-evaluation" report by ERI is not the Masterplan. It’s a group of suggestions that the Planning Board adopted to help create a new Masterplan.
2. The Health Sciences Zone language in the "Re-evaluation" still contains the "overlay" lots which will be removed from the new Masterplan when it’s published.
3. As you stated at the 7/14/25 Council Meeting, ERI and your firm are still working to get language right for the historic preservation element.
4. When the review you are currently conducting is complete, Mount Holly will publish a new master plan that is largely consistent with the Re-evaluation but with updated Historic Preservation and Health Zone language.
On July 16, 2025, the office of the Township Solicitor wrote back stating the following
“With respect to your question number 1, this is correct and I believe Deputy Mayor DiFolco specifically corrected this at the last planning board meeting. The 2024 re-evaluation report prepared by ERI can be used to assist in connection with updating the existing masterplan when that exercise occurs.”
OPRA AND THE NATURE OF MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT
And so, the GRC Mediation confirmed what The Reporter suspected: The Planning Board did not compare ordinance 2025-6 to the Master Plan. They compared it to The Report.
Is that legal? Good question. Perhaps some litigant will test that in court one day.
But for now let’s consider a comment made to The Reporter by the Solicitor during mediation.
They said that The Reporter’s use of OPRA
“…seems like an incredible waste of the Township’s taxpayer dollars…”.
The Reporter Responded
Had Ms. Marnell answered our questions prior to the GRC complaint, the entire “waste” could have been avoided.
The exchange between the Solicitor and The Reporter regarding OPRA reflects a common disposition exhibited by many local officials. Too often they do not view inquisitive residents as opportunities to become effective communicators. Instead they treat these inquiries as a “pain” that is wasting their time. If we are being fair, this attitude is common to offices that are overwhelmed and understaffed. Administrators may view a lean staff as helpful to the budget, but residents who expect flexibility and communication are likely to be disappointed, especially when retirements and departures drain the “institutional memory” from a vulnerable organization. But whatever the reasons for deeming legitimate inquiries a “waste” or ignoring them, the OPRA is always available to shed light on government business.